What constitutes a person's IQ?

Your IQ, or intelligence quotient, is a reflection of how well you perform on a specific test that measures cognitive abilities. Learn more about IQ tests in this episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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smart happens. Hi, I'm Marshall Brain with today's question. What

(00:31):
constitutes a person's i Q? The term i Q or
intelligent quotient generally describes a score on a test that
rates the subject's cognitive ability as compared to the general population.
I Q tests use a standardized scale with one hundred
as the median score on most tests. A score between

(00:53):
ninety and a hundred ten or the media and plus
or minus ten indicates average intelligence. A score above one
thirty indicates exceptional intelligence, and a score below seventy may
indicate mental retardation. Like their predecessors, modern tests do take
into account the age of the child when determining an

(01:14):
IQ score. Children are graded relative to the population at
their developmental level. What is this cognitive ability being measured?
Simply put, i Q tests are designed to measure your
general ability to solve problems and understand concepts. This includes
reasoning ability, problem solving ability, ability to perceive relationships between things,

(01:39):
and the ability to store and retrieve information. I Q
tests measure this general intellectual ability in a number of
different ways. They may test, for example, spatial ability the
ability to visualize manipulations of shapes, mathematical ability, the ability
to solve problems and use logic. Language ability. This could

(02:03):
include the ability to complete sentences or recognize words when
letters have been rearranged or removed, and memory ability, the
ability to recall things presented either visually or orally. Questions
in each of these categories test for a specific cognitive ability,
but many psychologists hold that they also indicate general intellectual ability.

(02:28):
Most people perform better on one type of question than
on others, but experts have determined that for the most part,
people who excel in one category do similarly well in
the other categories, and if someone does poorly in any
one category, he also does poorly in the others. Based
on this, these experts theorized there is one general element

(02:51):
of intellectual ability that determines other specific cognitive abilities. Ideally,
and i Q test measures this general factor of intelligence
abbreviated as G. The best tests therefore feature questions from
many different categories of intellectual ability, so that the test
isn't weighted toward one specific skill. Because i Q tests

(03:15):
measure your ability to understand ideas and not the quantity
of your knowledge, learning new information does not automatically increase
your i Q. Learning may exercise your mind, however, which
could help to develop greater cognitive skills, but scientists do
not fully understand this relationship yet. The connection between learning

(03:37):
and mental ability is still largely unknown, as are the
workings of the brain and the nature of intellectual ability.
In general, intellectual ability does seem to depend more on
genetic factors than on environmental factors, but most experts agree
that environment plays some significant role in its development. Still,

(03:58):
everyone wants to know can you increase your i Q score?
There is some evidence that children develop higher intellectual ability
if they receive better nurturing and diet as babies, and
a higher degree of intellectual stimulation in preschool tends to
boost children's IQ scores for a few years of elementary school,

(04:18):
but it doesn't permanently increase i Q scores for the
most part, adult i Q scores don't significantly increase over time.
There's evidence that maintaining an intellectually stimulating atmosphere, for example,
by learning new skills or solving puzzles, boost some cognitive ability,
similar to the way maintaining an exercise regimen boost physical ability.

(04:44):
But these changes aren't permanent and do not have much
effect on i Q scores, So your i Q score
is relatively stable no matter what education you acquire. This
does not mean that you can increase your intelligence. I
Q tests are only one imperfect method of measuring certain
aspects of intellectual ability. A lot of critics point out

(05:06):
that i Q tests don't measure creativity, social skills, wisdom,
acquired abilities, or a host of other things we consider
to be aspects of intelligence. The value of i Q
tests is that they measure general cognitive ability, which has
been proven to be fairly accurate as an indicator of
intellectual potential. There is a high positive correlation between i

(05:31):
Q and success in school and the workplace, but there
are many many cases where i Q and success do
not coincide. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as
we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.

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